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After the third gate opens, the Hero have to battle two more waves before the Great Gate opens. As soon as one sees the gate begin to rise up out of the ground, get into position to run into the gate. The battle raging outside pauses when they enter, so get inside as soon as possible.

After entering, immediately head towards the left and head for the first door to the Caverns. Inside the caverns, slay only the Daedra in their way and head for the door to one of the lesser towers. Inside this tower, head for the top and kill the Daedra guarding the Corpse Masher, then ride up to the top, killing any other Daedra in the way.

The siege machine approaches

At the top, activate the Gate Control, then head back down through the door. Go past the opening gate, and deal with the Dremora. If one can't finish the fight quickly either ignore them or knock them off the ledge into the pits of lava.

Alternatively, with a high Acrobatics skill or a Water Walking enchantment, one can skip the caverns entirely and jump along the bottom of the broken bridge, carefully avoiding the lava. This can save them precious minutes at the cost of a few health potions.

Another method is if one has mastery of Acrobatics: water-jump the entire way across the lava. A solid absorb magicka, reflect magicka, or resist fire enchantment will be useful to avoid all of the fireballs the Siege Engine is throwing at them. It is rather difficult to get up to the door from the lava, though, so this is to be done purely for entertainment purposes.

In addition to the above alternate completion ways, once the Hero is a Journeyman of Acrobatics, they can take the right tower and jump the two gaps if they take all their armor off and put their weapons away. This allows the Hero to run faster and jump further, making it across the broken bridge.

Enter the tower and if there is more than 8–9 minutes, one can take the tower at a "usual" Oblivion gate speed, however do not be tempted to check every single loot container or body. Proceed up into the Rending Halls, killing any Daedra in their way. Be sure to use the map to avoid getting lost. Exit back into the tower at the top of the halls, and continue up the tower.

One can run through and basically ignore anything that takes more than a few swings or spells to kill. Either kill the Sigil Keeper, or if they have lockpicks, ignore him. He has the Sigil key that unlocks Sigillum Sanguis, which is otherwise protected by an Average lock.

If they are really short on time, then ignore the Daedra or knock them off the ledge (if possible). The only Daedra they might need to kill is the Sigil Keeper since he has the key, and even he can be skipped if they have lockpicks, an Open Average Lock spell, or the Skeleton Key.

When inside the Sigillum Sanguis, head up to the top to remove the Sigil Stone. The Great Gate will shut down and the Hero is back on the battlefield where all the soldiers are clapping their hands of their success.

While battling the waves of enemies waiting for the Great Gate to appear, if one accidentally slays any of their allies during the battle, they may be fined, and upon arrival to Bruma after handing over the Great Sigil Stone to Martin, a Bruma Guard will confront them as a criminal. If there are any stolen items in the inventory, save before going back to any of the cities so that one is not caught off-guard.

There is a 15 minute timer on this quest, however there is sometimes a glitch that makes it appear that one has two minutes less than one actually has: one can tell if this glitch affects them because the timer will start at 13 minutes instead of 15.

If there are certain enchanted items from the Shivering Isles, or any other enchanted armor and weapons, some may not appear in their statue. When beat with Dawnfang/Duskfang, the character was depicted with a dagger instead.

Also, this is the only quest where Jauffre can (and most likely will) die. Baurus may also be vulnerable once again.

If they are a high-level alchemist or Illusionist, brew a few dozen Invisibility or Chameleon potions or bring an invisibility spell, such as Deathly Visage, (available to members of The Dark Brotherhood from the Khajiit M'raaj-Dar). Using an invisibility spell will mean that you can bypass any fights with Daedra or Dremora that you encounter in the tower and cave system. Having recently completed the Miscarcand quest, you might have a large quantity of Welkynd Stones in your inventory, handy for refilling your magicka, as you will have to cast the invisibility enchantment regularly as it dispels whenever you walk through a door, activate anything or attack.

It is possible, when activating the Great Sigil Stone to grab it, to get multiple of them by activating repeatedly.This is unnecessary however, since they can not be used.

Also, while the statue is usually grey, if the armor of the Divine Crusader is worn then the character is depicted in full color. For this reason, one may want to bring along your favorite set of armor/weapons, for purely cosmetic reasons, as the most equipment they are wearing when they take the Sigil Stone will be what is sculpted.

If the Hero wants a certain armor and weapon on the statue, they should drop every other piece of clothing, armor, and weapon from their inventory and only carry what they want on the statue. If not, the statue may bear articles that the Hero did not use during the quest but was just sitting in their inventory. This applies to quest items too, so completion of the item's relating quest should be done so the quest item does not have a chance to appear on the statue.